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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 






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FROM 



Death to Resurrection; 



OR. 



SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY CONCERNING THE 
SAINTED DEAD. 




S. H. KELLOGG, D.D., 

Professor in the Western Theological Seminary \ Allegheny \ Pa, 

AUTHOR OF 

11 The Jews;" V4 The Light of Asia and the Light of the World^ etc. 









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WASHING 



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NEW YORK: ^ 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

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COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY 

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CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Question, 5 

Not a Final State, 8 

Misapplied Scripture, 13 

A State of Consciousness, .... 18 

A State of Rest, 28 

With Christ, 41 

A Sinless State, 43 

A State of Preparation, . . . .50 
A State of Imperfection, . . . .52 
A State of Faith and Hope, ... 56 
Where? 60 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 



THE QUESTION. 




]UCH has been written, especially of 
late years, upon the state of the soul 
after death. It is not strange. Few- 
questions are of more practical, personal in- 
terest than this. For until the generation 
which shall witness the personal advent of the 
Lord, among whom, we are told in Holy 
Scripture, there shall be some who " shall not 
sleep,"* we all have sooner or later to face the 
mystery of death. That day can not be far 
away from any of us at the furthest ; it may, 
to any of us, be very near. 

And even before we are called to solve the 
mystery by our personal experience, we are 
made from time to time to face it in the ex- 
perience of others. Again and again we are 
called to stand beside the bedside of the dying. 



* i Cor. xv. 51 ; 2 Thess. iv. 17. 

(I) 



6 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

With swelling heart we have watched the 
changing face, and listened in anguish to the 
shortening breath ; we have spoken or looked 
the last good-bye, and then, in an instant, the 
departing one has passed out of sight and out 
of hearing, into the world of the unknown ! 

There lies the body, but yesterday, perhaps, 
so full of life and animation, and now an in- 
sensate piece of clay! A moment ago, and 
he we loved was here ; and now, in one mo- 
ment, that which was speaking to us, that 
which we loved and which loved us, is gone ! 
gone ! — and so very far, far away ! How the 
thoughts rush in upon the mind at such a 
time! what great soul-possessing questions 
tumultuously throng up in such an hour for 
answer! But an answer neither experience 
nor reason have to give. 

Yet, where experience is silent and reason 
bewildered, fancy and imagination have had 
much to say. From time to time are offered 
us new theories which set forth, with what- 
soever plausibility or lack of plausibility, the 
speculations of their several authors as to the 
life of the disembodied soul. To recapitulate 
these theories here is needless. They may for 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 7 

the time beguile the heart of some, but they 
can none of them give satisfaction to any one 
who seeks for certitude of knowledge in this 
matter. One mans dreams and speculations 
here are as good as another's. We may well 
leave these eschatologies of the imagination 
to refute each other. 

But there is one source from which we may 
hope for light upon this subject. Though 
experience and reason can tell us nothing, 
and fancy and imagination only mock us with 
ever-dissolving phantasies, we may turn hope- 
fully to the Word of the ever-living God. 
The men who spake " the wisdom of God,"* 
"as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," f 
can be trusted to help us here. For they 
spake from Christ, and it is He, He only, who 
died and lived again, whose are " the keys of 
death and of Hades," % that can tell us, as 
"the Amen, the faithful and true Witness," § 
how it is with those who have passed behind 
the veil. To Him and to His inspired Word 
we come with these questionings of our souls. 



* 1 Cor. ii. 7. t 2 Pet. i. 21. \ Rev. i. i& 

§ Rev. iii. 14. 



8 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION'. 

What does that Word teach us as to the 
state upon which believers enter at death ? 



NOT A FINAL STATE. 

|E answer, in the first place, Holy Scrip- 
ture teaches that the believer does not 
yet at death enter on his final state. Not 
yet even has he fully apprehended that for 
which he was apprehended of Christ Jesus. 
Let us mark and emphasize this well, that the 
Word of God does not teach that he who dies 
in Christ has yet attained his final state. He 
has reached, as we shall see, a blessed state > 
it is " far better " with him than it was here ; * 
but for all that, it is not yet his final state. 
Better still is before him. Let us heed this 
the more carefully because here at once we 
find ourselves in opposition to the fancies of 
many, as to not a little of current theology. 
And yet whatsoever the opinions of men may 
be on the subject, if anything in the Scrip- 
ture is clear, it is this, that although in the 
state of the righteous after death, there is 

* Phil. i. 23. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. g 

much which is eternal, still the disembodied 
life upon which then they enter, is not, as 
such, eternal. Like this present life, it will 
at last have an end ; but it will end, not by a 
death, but with re-embodiment, with resurrec- 
tion. 

This is plain from what the Word of God 
teaches concerning the resurrection of the 
dead. Sadly, alas, have many fallen away 
from the teachings of the Scripture and the 
hope of the primitive church concerning the 
resurrection of the dead. Many there are 
who tell us that by the resurrection of the 
dead is only meant the emancipation of the 
soul from the material embodiment in death. 
Others, again, dream of a so-called u spiritual " 
body — not that of which Paul tells us,* but 
that of Swedenborg ; — a body which we are 
supposed to carry about with us, even now, 
and which being set free from this grosser 
body in the article of death, we have therein 
" the resurrection of the dead ! " 

But neither the one nor the other theory 
is the doctrine of the resurrection as we find 

* i Cor. xv. 44. 



I0 FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 

it in the Holy Scripture. For they both alike 
identify death with resurrection, whereas the 
Scripture distinguishes and contrasts them. 
They make the resurrection in each case to be 
separate and merely individual, whereas the 
Scripture makes the resurrection of believers 
simultaneous.' 55 ' They each make the resur- 
rection to be a constantly occurring fact of 
the present age, whereas the Scripture makes 
the resurrection to be a fact of the future, 
the great event which ushers in what it calls 
"the age (or ' world') to come"; an event 
ordained to take place at the second coming 
of the Lord Jesus, " the Resurrection and the 
Life."f In a word, while these theorists 
hold to the word " resurrection/' they deny 
the fact. For while the Bible teaches that it 
is that which died that rises, that which " is 
sown in corruption " which " is raised incor- 
ruptible," :{: these teach that it is not that 
which dies that rises, but somewhat which 
never died at all, nor can die. 



* i Cor. xv. 23; 1 Thess. iv. 13-18. 
t John v. 28, 29 ; et N. T. passim. 
% 1 Cor. xv. 36, 42. 



FROM DBA TH TO RESURRECTION. j \ 

We repeat, then, such theories as these, 
while pretending to affirm the truth, deny it 
outright. If either of these too common 
views were the truth, then there were no resur- 
rection of the dead ; and we were left, accord- 
ing to the logic of the inspired apostle, to 
face his awful conclusion : " If there be no 
resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not 
risen ; and if Christ is not risen, then is our 
preaching vain ; your faith is also vain ; ye are 
yet in your sins. Then they also that are 
fallen asleep in Christ are perished."* 

With a deep feeling of relief do we turn 
from these inane speculations of the modern 
children of Hymenaeus and Philetus,f to the 
Word of God the Holy Ghost. " We believe 
in the resurrection of the dead." We find it 
written, " Them that sleep in Jesus shall God 



* i Cor. xv. 14, 17, 18. 

t " Shun profane and vain babblings ; for they will 
increase unto more ungodliness. And their word 
will eat as doth a canker : of whom is Hymenaeus 
and Philetus ; who concerning the truth have erred, 
saying that the resurrection is past already; and 
overthrow the faith of some." 2 Tim. ii. 16-18. 



12 FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 

bring with Him."* Not before that do they 
rise. For, again it is written, " We which are 
alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, 
shall not precede them which are asleep. For 
the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, 
and with the trump of God ; and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first ; then we which are alive 
and remain, shall be caught up together with 
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air ! " f This is not a description of a death- 
bed scene ! It announces something which 
has never yet been seen ; but which verily 
shall be seen, in that day when the Crucified 
One shall "appear the second time without 
sin unto salvation." % 

But if there is to be a resurrection of the 
dead, — if the soul of the departed saint is 
again to assume, in the day of Christ's ap- 
pearing, a bodily organization suited to its 
glorified condition, — then it is certain that the 
state into which the believer enters at death, 
whatever else may be said of it, is not a final 

* i Thess. iv. 14. t lb. vss. 15-17. 

% Heb. ix. 28. 






FROM DBA TH TO RESURRECTION-. 1 3 

state. It is certain that it must be a condi- 
tion profoundly contrasted, not only with the 
present life, but also with that upon which 
we shall enter with the future resurrection of 
the body. 

The life of man therefore falls, not into two 
stages, as many are wont to speak, but into 
three. First, there is the stage from birth to 
death, which is a life in the "natural" or 
" animal "* body ; second, the life from death 
to resurrection, which is life without a body ; 
and third and final is the life from the resur- 
rection on, which is life in the body spiritual 
and incorruptible. 

MISAPPLIED SCRIPTURE. 

|HEN we inquire more particularly what 
the Scriptures clearly teach as to the 
nature of this intermediate state — as we must 
rightly term it — we have to answer that they 
teach us surprisingly little. How little, in fact, 
they have to say about it, is the less realized 
by many that so frequently men have drawn 



* 1 Cor. xv. 44. See Vulgate. 



14 FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 

on the imagination to fill out a picture of 
which revelation has given but a bare outline. 
« Still more often have men wrongly applied to 
the condition of believers in the intermediate 
state what the Scriptures only affirm of their 
condition after resurrection, thereby intro- 
ducing a coloring into the picture of the dis- 
embodied life which does not belong there. 

A familiar example of this misapplication 
of Scripture is furnished by the last two 
chapters of the Revelation of John. These 
are constantly cited as descriptive of the 
heaven into which we enter at death, while in 
point of fact, they contain no reference what- 
ever thereto. So far is this from being true 
that among all the different systems of inter- 
pretation of this book, there is not one which 
makes these two chapters to be descriptive of 
the life between death and the resurrection. 
A very little examination of the plan of the 
Apocalypse, and especially of the context of 
these chapters, will make it clear to any one 
that such an application of them, however 
common it may be with the unthinking, and 
however endeared to us by long association 
is wholly without warrant. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 



15 



The vision of the Holy City, with its gates 
of pearl and streets of gold, is made by the. 
apostle to follow that of the judgment and the 
great white throne. It is formally connected 
with the latter by the words at the beginning 
of chap, xxi., as setting forth a state of things 
which follows chronologically upon the final 
judgment. In the former vision, John had 
seen the heavens and earth which now are, 
pass away ; in this vision, as succeeding 
thereto, he tells us that he " saw a new heaven 
and a new earth." Nor is the scene of the 
vision the unseen world of spirits, or " heaven." 
The place of the Holy City is the renewed 
earth. We must not therefore go to these 
chapters, as so many do, for information as 
to the life of the believer immediately after 
death. While certain statements therein made 
are doubtless true also — as we learn from 
other Scriptures — of believers even in the 
intermediate state, they can not be quoted in 
proof of any doctrine as to the disembodied 
life before the resurrection. They are proof 
passages for resurrection life, and for that 
only. 

In like manner, it may not be amiss to ob- 



1 6 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

serve, the common use of the phrase, "the 
world to come," to denote the unseen spirit- 
ual world, or order of things, into which we 
enter at death, is also without any warrant in 
the Scripture. The phrase is no doubt a 
Scriptural phrase, but this is not its Scrip- 
tural signification. In not a passage where it 
is used in the New Testament, can it be shown 
to have this meaning. Its sense must be his- 
torically determined. We must understand the 
phrase, not in any sense that may suit our 
modern notions, but in that sense in which it 
was used by the Jews to whom our Lord and 
His apostles spoke and wrote. What that 
sense was, is not a matter of dispute. The 
phrase, " the world to come," (Greek, ho aion 
ho mellon ; Hebrew, haolam habba), was in- 
variably used to denote, not the disembodied 
state or the place of disembodied souls be- 
tween death and the resurrection, but an 
order of things on the earth, to be inherited, 
as the Jews all believed, by the people of God 
in the resurrection. The phrase were there- 
fore better interpreted to our modern thought 
by the words "the age to come." This is 
suggested in the margin of the revised version, 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 



17 



in all places where this phrase occurs, with 
one exception. That one exception is found 
in Hebrews, ii. 5. In this passage, however, 
the literal sense of the words rendered, " the 
world to come," is as the margin of the re- 
vised version gives it, " the inhabited earth to 
come." But this is further yet from any 
possibility of application to the intermediate 
state. No statement or suggestion which we 
may find or think we find in passages in Scrip- 
ture which speak of " the world to come " 
can be quoted in proof of any doctrine with 
regard to the intermediate state, either of the 
saved or the lost. In every instance where the 
words are used, they point us beyond the dis- 
embodied, to the re-embodied state in the 
resurrection at Christ's second coming. 

Illustrations of such misapplications of 
Scripture to the intermediate state, need not 
be further multiplied. When we have elim- 
inated all conceptions of the disembodied life 
which are derived from such misapplied Scrip- 
ture, and all the conjectures of the imagina- 
tion, we shall find that our residuum of positive 
knowledge concerning the state of being in 
which the Christian finds himself at death is 



1 8 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

but small. Though it be little, however, — ■ 
far less than we could wish to know, — that 
little is very definite and full of comfort. 

A STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 

j|S fundamental to all else, the Scriptures 
teach that the intermediate state is a 
state of consciousness. 

It may indeed well be doubted whether the 
words which our Lord quoted from the Old 
Testament to the Sadducees, — " I am the God 
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God 
of Jacob, etc."* — can be rightly adduced as 
proof of this, as some have judged. For the 
question with them was not as to the inter- 
mediate state, but as to the possibility of res- 
urrection. This the Sadducees denied upon 
materialistic grounds. As opposed to this 
our Lord proves from the Pentateuch, which 
they professed to believe, that Abraham and 
the patriarchs were still alive. " God," was 
His conclusion, "is not the God of the dead, 
but of the living." But if alive, then the 



* See Matt. xxii. 23-32. 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. jg 

Sadducees were wrong in denying the exist- 
ence of spirit, and resurrection of the dead 
was possible. But this only proves life in 
the intermediate state, not conscious life. The 
one does not involve the other. 

But though we have not proof of the con- 
tinuance of consciousness after death, in this 
place where many have sought it, we have 
abundant proof in other incontrovertible 
Scriptures. The story of the rich man and 
Lazarus clearly teaches that Lazarus (as well 
as the rich man " in torment " ) was conscious 
after he died and before the resurrection."* 
The state of things depicted must be taken 
as referring to the disembodied life this side 
the resurrection, for the brothers of the rich 
man were still alive upon the earth. At that 
time, Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom, sepa- 
rated by an impassable gulf from the ungodly. 
Poor consolation it had been for him to be in 
Abraham's bosom, if he were unconscious, as 
some would have it, and did not know that 
he was there ! 

To the same effect are the never-to-be-for- 



* Luke xvi. 19-31. 



2o FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

gotten words of Christ to the dying thief 
upon the cross: " Verily, I say unto thee, 
To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise ! " * 
What force could these words have, how 
bring comfort to that dying sinner, if with 
his expiring sigh he were to sink into a state 
of dead unconsciousness, only to be broken 
by the judgment-trumpet ? What the mean- 
ing, on that supposition, of that word " To- 
day "? To connect, as a few have ventured 
to do, the word rendered " To-day," with the 
words " I say unto thee " — " To-day I say 
unto thee, etc.," is justly characterized by the 
highest exegetical authority as "a violent 
forcing of the sense of the passage." f "To- 
day thou shalt be with me in paradise ! " 
Blessed words ! well may we hold them fast. 
They clearly teach that we shall not, in dying, 
sink into a swoon of unconsciousness until 
the judgment day. And they teach much 
more than that, as we shall shortly see. 

Paul teaches the same doctrine, once and 
again. To the Corinthians % he writes of the 

* Luke xxiii. 43. 

t See Meyer, "Commentary on Luke," sub loc. cit* 

\ 2 Cor. v. 1-4. 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 2 l 

dissolution of " our earthly house of this 
tabernacle," and of a coming time wherein 
we shall be " unclothed." This unclothed 
state, he tells us, he did not regard as in itself 
desirable ; for he adds, " We that are in this 
tabernacle do groan, being burdened ; not for 
that we would be unclothed, but clothed 
upon." Nevertheless, he tells us, even thus, 
in view of death he was always " of good 
courage,"* because, so long as here "at home 
in the body," he was " absent from the Lord "; 
wherefore, he continues, " we are willing 
rather to be absent from the body, and to be 
at home with the Lord." 

Similar is his language to the Philippians, 
in the near prospect of death. For we read, 
" What I shall choose, I wot not. For I am in 
a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart 
and be with Christ, which is far better," — f 
that is, of course, than life here. Surely 
such words as these of Paul to the Corinthians 
and the Philippians have no meaning except 
they imply that Paul expected to be conscious 



* So the Revised version, loc. cit % 
\ Phil. i. 22, 24. 



22 FROM DEA Til TO RESURRECTION. 

immediately after death, and while "absent 
from the body " ! What possible satisfaction 
could there be in being unconsciously "at 
home with the Lord " ? 

To the same effect are the representations 
of the state of the departed saints which we 
find in the Apocalypse. Prior to the resur- 
rection, according to all but some futurist 
interpreters, must we place the vision of the 
palm-bearing multitude standing before the 
throne. Are they unconscious ? No, for John 
says that he heard them crying with a loud 
voice and saying, " Salvation to our God 
which sitteth upon the throne, and to the 
Lamb."* To the same effect is the whole 
glowing description of their condition and 
employment in the latter verses of the same 
chapter. They are " before the throne of God 
and serve Him day and night in His temple"; 
the Lamb feeds them and " leads them unto 
living fountains of waters." f Surely they are 
conscious ! 

The same remarks apply to the vision of 
the harpers upon the glassy sea.:|: They are 

* Rev. vii. 10. t lb. vss. 15, 16. 

\ Rev. xv. 2-4. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 23 

described as a host of martyrs who have come 
victorious from the beast. The passage rep- 
resents their condition before the resurrection 
at the second advent, for the beast is not de- 
stroyed till the last of the vials is poured out, 
and this destruction is by the returning Lord. 
These heavenly harpers, therefore, at the time 
indicated in the vision, just before the out- 
pouring of the vials of wrath, are as yet in 
the disembodied state. Are they conscious 
or unconscious ? Can any one doubt ? For 
it is written that John in vision heard them 
singing "the song of Moses the servant of 
God, and the song of the Lamb " ! 

So also with the 144,000 with the Lamb on 
Mount Zion ; they are also engaged in prais- 
ing God.* And even if any should so press 
the futurist interpretation of this book, as to 
insist that certainly in each of these cases we 
have representations of risen saints, still this 
could not be said of the passage which we 
find elsewhere, in which we read of the souls 
of martyrs whom John heard crying, — in 
words which show that their resurrection ancl 

* Rev, xiv. 1-3. 



24 FROM DBA TH TO RESURRECT/OK. 

reward had not yet come, — " How long, O 
Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and 
avenge our blood upon them that dwell on 
the earth ? " * 

It is no answer to these testimonies to 
refer us to the symbolical character of the 
book. We admit that much even in the very 
visions to which we have referred must be 
symbolical. No one will insist that the palms 
and the harps and the white robes of these 
verses are literal, because in the case of dis- 
embodied souls, it is plain that these things 
must be taken in a figurative sense. But it is 
certain that a symbolical vision can not be 
made to teach, as these visions would other- 
wise teach, what is not merely different from, 
but actually contradictory of, the real state of 
the case. How is it conceivable that if the 
dead in Christ are really unconscious till the 
final judgment, as many will have it, that in 
these visions they should always have been 
represented as intensely conscious? 

These Scriptures should be enough to set- 
tle the question. Against testimony so abun- 

* Rev. v. 8. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION, 2$ 

dant and positive as that we have considered 
to urge that the application of the term 
" sleep " in the New Testament to the con- 
dition of the holy dead implies unconscious- 
ness, can justly have but little force. For 
there are other reasons w T hich in all ages, quite 
apart from any belief in the unconsciousness 
of the dead, have led men to speak of death 
as a sleep. There is, for instance, the outward 
resemblance of death to sleep. Like sleep, 
also, death brings cessation from the toils and 
the cares of life. And, again, in addition to 
these reasons, which might as well occur to a 
heathen, there is yet another which would 
give the adoption of the term " sleep " by the 
Spirit of God, a new fitness to denote death ; 
namely, that even the body, for a time inactive 
in death as in sleep, is yet to be awakened 
as from sleep, at the last trumpet, then to 
take part for good or evil in an undying life. 

Of as little weight are those Old Testament 
Scriptures which are often urged by those 
who maintain the sleep of the soul from death 
till resurrection. To examine each of such 
passages in detail would take us beyond the 
limits of this book. But we may well indicate 



26 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

a consideration of \vhich many seem to lose 
sight in their use of Scripture passages in this 
connection. It should ever be remembered 
that the affirmation of the plenary inspiration 
of the Holy Scriptures does not carry with it 
the affirmation of the truth of every statement 
which we may find between the lids of the 
Bible. The Bible is not a tabulated collection 
of doctrinal statements ; it is to a very large 
extent a record of the sayings and doings of 
living men, and, as we believe, an unerring 
record. But it is not inconsistent with their 
inerrancy, — nay, their infallibility as such a 
record even demands that when they give us 
the sayings and beliefs of men who were bad 
or ignorant, they shall state those beliefs as 
they were held, and not as they were not held. 
Thus, for example, it is true that we read 
in the Book of Ecclesiastes, " the dead know 
not anything"; "there is no knowledge nor 
wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest "; * 
and these words are often quoted to prove 
that death is a state of unconsciousness. But 
such an application of the words shows that 

* Eccl. ix. s, 10. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 



27 



the real character of the Book of Ecclesiastes 
is by those who make it forgotten or misap- 
prehended. It is, we grant, inspired. We 
admit without reserve its infallibility. But it 
is inspired and infallible, as a representation of 
that which it was intended to represent ; viz., 
the experience of a man seeking to gain satis- 
faction from the world. 

Instead, therefore, of inspiration implying 
the infallible truth of each statement that we 
find in the book, the very fact that it is a 
record of this kind, compels us to say that a 
large part of its statements must be the op- 
posite of true. They give, with unfailing ex- 
actness, the opinions and feelings of a worldly 
man of those days in regard to life and death, 
opinions which in the nature of the case must 
often have been wrong. And so the mere 
fact that one can adduce passages like that 
before us, from this book, proves nothing 
against the clear teachings of the New Testa- 
ment, the direct words of Him w T ho came and 
brought to light what was not with such clear- 
ness revealed before, namely, "life and im- 
mortality." Let one refuse to admit this, and 
he will be led to some startling conclusions 



28 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

from this same book ; as for instance, that " a 
man hath no pre-eminence above a beast ";* 
and that " there is nothing better for a man 
than that he should eat and drink, and that 
he should make his soul enjoy good in his 
labor." f There is, thus, no real antagonism 
between words such as these in Ecclesiastes 
and elsewhere, and the clear declarations of 
Christ and His apostles which teach or imply 
a consciousness after death. We must in all 
cases distinguish between the opinions of men 
as contained in the Scripture record, from the 
teaching of that record itself. 



A STATE OF REST. 

gglHE Scriptures also teach that the state 
111.111 of the righteous between death and res- 
urrection, is a state of rest. In proof of this 
we should not cite, as some have done, the 
words of Job, " There the wicked cease from 
troubling, and there the weary be at rest." % 
For although the book of Job is inspired, and 
is throughout a part of God's infallible word, 

* Eccl. iii. 19. t Eccl. ii. 24. \ Job iii. 17 



FROM DBA TH TO RESURRECTION. 



29 



we are nowhere taught that Job himself was 
an inspired man. Very often, according to 
the teaching of the book of Job itself, Job 
spoke that which was not right, and his words 
on any subject, however they may be used to 
illustrate truth, can not be taken as in them- 
selves proof of doctrine. That in this expres- 
sion of his, however, Job was right, we learn 
elsewhere, even from the Old Testament. 

In the book of Isaiah, it is the Lord who 
uses by the prophet the following language : 
" The righteous perisheth and no man layeth 
it to heart. None considereth that the righte- 
ous is taken away from the evil (to come).* 
He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in 
their beds, each one that walketh in his 
uprightness. ,, f These are plain statements. 
They tell us in so many words that " every 
one who walketh straight before him," X his 
eye on the Lord and His kingdom, when he 
dies shall enter into peace, and in his bed of 
death shall find rest. 



* The words " to come " have nothing correspond- 
ing to them in the Hebrew, 
t Is. lvii. 1, 2 (R. V.) 
J Delitzsch's rendering : see the Hebrew. 



30 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

In the light of these words we are warranted 
in understanding the idea of rest also to be 
implied in all those New Testament passages 
which refer to the death of believers as a sleep. 
To the same effect are the words of the Spirit 
in the Apocalypse, " Blessed are the dead that 
die in the Lord from henceforth ; yea, saith 
the Spirit, for they do rest from their labors." * 
There is nothing regarding the departed peo- 
ple of God which, according to the Scripture, 
we may say with more confidence than this, 
that they have entered into rest. 

In what does that rest consist ? We may 
answer, in the first place, with Isaiah, — In 
rest from all "evil." "The righteous is taken 
away from the evil." Death brings rest to 
the believer from all that to him is evil. He 
shall have rest from all the outward cares and 
sorrows of life. The vexations and perplex- 
ities of earthly business, the annoyances to 
which we are subject in our social relations 
will all end, with all such things, at death. 



* Unless, possibly, with some expositors, we should 
refer these words to the following vision, and un- 
derstand them of the resurrection. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 3 1 

The believer will then have rest from the 
temptations and assaults of the evil one. 
How much this alone may signify, we prob- 
ably can not know till at last we shall find our- 
selves for the first time in a place where Satan 
can not reach us. He is responsible for much 
more of our trouble than most people in these 
days give him credit for. So also will the 
believer have rest from the temptations and 
allurements of the xvorld. Here we are in 
such relations with the world of sense, which 
is for the time now present under sin and 
Satan, that we can not possibly avoid the pres- 
sure of its influence, or escape wholly the 
force of its seductions. 

" The fondness of a creature's love — 
How strong it strikes the sense ! 
Thither our strong affections move, 
Nor can we call them thence." 

But with death the Christian, for the time, 
drops altogether out of this world of sense. 
From that time on he belongs to it no more, 
nor shall again till the day of " the regener- 
ation " * or " restoration of all things," f when, 



* Matt. xix. 28. t Acts iii. 21 (R. V.) 



32 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 



upon the reassumption of the body, he shall 
find the world of sense also " delivered, " like 
himself and all believers, " from the bondage 
of corruption into the liberty of the glory 
of the children of God." * 

So also shall the believer have rest in death 
from the warfare of the spirit against the flesh 
and the flesh against the spirit. No longer 
will he then have to say, " I see a law in my 
members warring against the law of my mind, 
and bringing me into captivity to the law of 
sin," f for the " members " are now laid aside, 
never again to be resumed as members of a 
weak and corruptible body, inciting to sin, — 
never more forever ! 

Then, often, the believer in this life is 
deeply saddened and wearied at heart by the 
prevalence of evil, of violence, and ungodli- 
ness, by the opposition, the ill-will, and mis- 
representation of ungodly men. All this shall 
end with death. So also shall, for the saved, 
all pain and sorrow. For it is of the disem- 
bodied state before the resurrection that tliose 
words are used in the Apocalypse, " They 



* Rom. viii. 21-23 (R« V.) t Rom. vii. 23. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 



33 



shall hunger no more, neither thirst any 
more ; neither shall the sun strike upon them 
nor any heat : . . . . and God shall wipe away 
every tear from their eyes." * Hunger and 
thirst, and all that can cause pain and move to 
tears, shall end with death. From all these 
things we shall then have everlasting rest. All 
this, at least, must be comprehended in those 
words, " The righteous shall rest in their beds 
(of death) ; each one that walketh in his up- 
rightness." 

But is this all that is included in this 
promise of "rest" in the disembodied state? 
Not so, if we rightly understand the teaching 
of God's Word. For, keeping still that Word 
steadily before our eye, we must add, that 
from death till resurrection we shall rest from 
labor. For each servant of God, death will 
end work, till Jesus comes again. Not only 
will it end the work which is peculiar to life 
in this world in the body, but the intermediate 
state will be characterized by respite from 
every kind of active work for Christ. 

As warrant for this statement, so contrary to 



* Rev. vii. 16, 17 (R. V.) 
3 



34 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

the fancy of many, we have the direct declar- 
ation of our Lord, who said, with express ref 
erence to His approaching death: "We must 
work the works of Him that sent me while it 
is day ; the night cometh, when no man can 
work." * So also it is written by the apostle 
John, " Blessed are the dead that die in the 

Lord Yea, saith the Spirit, for they do 

rest from their labors ; and their works do 
follow them." f The words used with regard 
to the last judgment are in harmony with this 
mode of representation. For we read that be- 
lievers are to give account in that day of " the 
things done in the body." % If our work for 
God continued in the disembodied state until 
the resurrection, can we suppose that such 
work should not come up also, as well as the 
work of this life, for estimation in the awards 
of the last day ? 

In perfect accord again with the same 
teaching is the fact that in all the representa- 
tions which we have of the condition and 
occupations of the holy dead, they are never 



* John ix. 4 (R. V.) t Rev. xiv. 13. 

\ Greek, " through the body " : see 2 Cor. v. 10. 



FROM DBA TH TO RESURRECTION. 35 

represented as working still, in that disem- 
bodied life, for God. We do, indeed, read 
that we shall judge the world, and shall judge 
angels, with Christ ; * that God's servants shall 
serve Him;f that one shall have authority 
over two, another over ten cities,:}: and so on ; 
and it is true that all these representations 
and others like them do point forward to a 
coming time when after death we shall enter 
upon work for God. But on examination it 
will be found that all such declarations are 
distinctly referred in the Scriptures to the times 
which shall be introduced by our Saviour's 
second coming and the resurrection from the 
dead. It is in the new earth, after the awards 
of the great white throne, that God's servants 
enter on those activities which are set forth 
in Rev. xxi., xxii. ; it is after the Son of Man 
comes to take account of His servants for the 
things done in the body, that we first hear the 
words, " Have thou authority over ten cities." 
There is not one such passage which, looked 
at in the light of other Scriptures, and espe- 



* 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3. t Rev. xxii. 3. 

\ Luke xix. 17-19. 



36 FROM DBA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

daily of its own context, teaches that the 
intermediate state shall be a state of active 
work for God. 

Still less can the words in Heb. i. be held 
to teach this, which we have heard cited in 
proof, — " Are they not all ministering spirits, 
sent forth to minister to those who shall be 
heirs of salvation? " * So to use this passage 
is grossly to misapply Scripture. The words 
refer, as the context plainly shows us, to 
angels, and to angels only. To assume with 
some that death transforms men into angels, 
that is, into another order of beings, is as un- 
scriptural as it is absurd. We are men here, 
and through whatsoever changes we may pass, 
we shall never become angels, but shall con- 
tinue men forever. 

We repeat then, that there is no exception 
to the fact that the Scriptures never once rep- 
resent the holy dead as engaged in various 
higher labors for God, as many love to think, 
and as we are often even taught in funeral 
sermons. Such fancies belong, not to the 
theology of the holy Scriptures, but to that of 

* Heb. i. 14. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 37 

the imagination They are directly contra- 
dicted by the plain words of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, who said that in the night of death " no 
man can work." 

The notions, therefore, which so many 
fondly cherish of the ministrations of departed 
friends, and even of intercourse with them, 
however they may appeal to our desires and 
affections, are totally without foundation in 
the Word of God. The bearing of this on 
the pretences of modern spiritualism is self- 
evident. 

Yet let us not be misunderstood. For 
while it is true that the Holy Word gives us 
no ground for believing that the holy dead, 
before the resurrection, are engaged in active 
works for God, especially such as have to do 
with this present world of sense, we must not 
infer that this implies a life of inactivity in 
every sense of the word. 4 For the same Word 
which forbids us to think of the departed dead 
as working for God, also represents them as, 
in another way, intensely active. 

The activity of the departed soul is, how- 
ever, always represented as directed God-ward, 
and not creature-ward. In all the apocalyptic 



38 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION-. 

representations of the intermediate state of 
the blessed dead, they are shown to us as en- 
gaged in holy offices of worship and prayer. 
Their service is therefore described as a tem- 
ple service ;* they are heard ascribing sal- 
vation to God and to the Lamb ;f as join- 
ing in that sublime ascription of praise and 
thanksgiving, " Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain." X They sing a new song which none 
but they can learn.§ As the judgment angels 
leave the heavenly sanctuary with the seven 
last plagues to pour upon the earth, the bless- 
ed martyrs again are heard hymning " the song 
of Moses the servant of God and the song of 
the Lamb," saying, " Great and marvellous are 
Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty ; 
righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King 
of the ages " ! || 

Combining all these inspired representations 
we are led to conclude that the disembodied 
life will be, as compared with the present, a 
life of rest from work. The activities of the 
soul in this present life are of necessity largely 



* Rev. vii. 15. t Rev. vii. 10. \ Rev. v. 9-13. 
§ Rev. xiv. 3. 1 Rev. xv. 2, 3 (R. V.) 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 39 

turned toward the external, sensible world, 
and, according to the Scriptures, will after the 
resurrection again be so engaged, in a more 
exalted way. But in the intermediate state 
the activities of the soul appear from the 
Holy Word as exclusively turned God-ward. 
In other words, the present is a life marked 
predominantly by the outward, objective tend- 
ency. The sensible world claims and must 
needs have much of attention, insomuch that 
our service of God here for the most part 
must take the form of a service of men like 
ourselves in the flesh. But the life from death 
to resurrection will be herein in sharp contrast 
with the present. The world which he who 
is dead has left, still indeed exists, in matter 
and form, as he left it. Yet to him for the 
time being it is as if it were not. Though 
memory may go back to it, and perchance he 
who is gone may desire that he could again 
there work for the Master, yet work for him 
is now ended until resurrection come. In full 
accord with the Scriptures on this point are 
the following words of Martensen : 

" The departed find themselves in a condi- 
tion of rest, .... that they are in the night, 



40 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

wherein no man can work. Their kingdom is 
not one of works and deeds, for they no longer 
possess the conditions upon which works and 
s deeds are possible. Nevertheless, they live a 
deep spiritual life. For the kingdom of the 
dead is a kingdom of subjectivity, a kingdom 
of calm thought and self-fathoming, a king- 
dom of remembrance in the full sense of the 
word." * 

Well worthy also of thought are the similar 
words of Dorner, who, concerning the saints 
in the world of the departed, has written as 
follows : 

" The life there is predominantly a life in 
spirituality. The essential, substantial union 
of the soul with Christ still exists, nay, is 
more untroubled and constant. Through God 
they are able to know about the world, and 
learn to view everything in connection with 
Christ. In this world the realities of the 
sensuous world are the objects of sight, the 
spiritual world is the object of faith. Then, 
when the physical side is wanting to the spirit, 
these poles will be reversed. To the de- 



* " Christian Dogmatics," § 276, p. 458. 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 



41 



parted spirits, the spiritual world, whethel 
in good or evil, will appear to be the real 
existence resting on immediate evidence." * 

All these particulars, then, and especially 
this last — too often overlooked or denied in 
our thoughts and words about the future, — 
are taught us in the Scripture as included in 
the conception of the " rest " into which the 
believer enters at death, and the state in which 
he shall abide until the resurrection. 

WITH CHRIST. 



NOTHER feature characteristic of the 
intermediate state of the blessed dead, 
according to the uniform and clearest repre- 
sentations of the Holy Scriptures, will be this, 
that, as contrasted with the present, it will be 
a state wherein we shall be with Christ. So 
our blessed Lord, when on the cross, told the 
dying thief, " To-day thou shalt be with me in 
Paradise." f Such also was Paul's expecta- 
tion. He tells us plainly that for the believer 



* "System of Christian Doctrine," § 153, iii. 3. 
t Luke xxiii. 43. 



42 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

to be "absent from the body," was to be "at 
home with the Lord." * Not in the mere 
fact of being delivered from a life in the body, 
as w r e have already seen, did Paul rejoice in 
the prospect of death. On the contrary, he 
speaks of that sundering of soul from body as 
in itself, to him — as to us — undesirable. And 
yet he could rejoice even in the expectation 
of this temporary disembodiment, because of 
this overwhelming and most blessed compen- 
sation, that in that state he should find him- 
self " at home with the Lord." 

And so much did this thought fill his mind 
when contemplating this state to which death 
would introduce him, that he tells us again, 
that, looking, on the one hand, at the work 
for Christ which he was doing here, and so 
loved to do, and which must stop for him at 
death, and then thinking, on the other hand, 
of the beatific presence of Christ into which 
the very article of death would introduce him, 
he was " in a strait betwixt the two, having 
the desire to depart and to be with Christ "; 
because this was " very far better." f 



* 2 Cor. v. 8 (R. V.) t Phil. i. 23 (R. V.) 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 43 

How much this alone will signify, those 
will best understand who best love Christ. 
To be with Christ ! with Him, the incarnate 
Son of God, most blessed and most holy! 
Him, who for love of us died upon the cross, 
and who, now glorified, is in the full posses- 
sion of that glory which He had with the 
Father before the world was ! * — to behold 
Him in His glory and be with Him — what 
must it be ! If that brief transfiguration 
vision of Jesus glorified, even as mortal eyes 
were able to behold Him, was such as to cause 
Peter to exclaim, " Lord ! it is good for us to 
be here ! " what shall it be, to be with the 
glorified Lord in Paradise ! 

A SINLESS STATE. 

what has been said the Scriptures au- 
thorize us to add this also, that in the 
intermediate state the believer will be per- 
fectly freed from sin. For this immeasurable 
blessing, he will not have to wait till resurrec- 
tion. And yet, most strange to say, this has 



* John xvii. 24. 



44 FROM DBA TH TO RESURRECTION'. 

been doubted or denied of late by eminent 
evangelical theologians, as Dorner, Martensen, 
and others. Dorner, for example, argues as 
follows : 

" If believers are conceived as holy imme- 
diately after death, sanctification would be 
effected by the separation from the body ; the 
seat, therefore, of evil must be found in the 
body, and sanctification would be realized 
through a mere suffering, namely, of death ; 
in a physical process, instead of through the 
will;" * To suppose that God might sanctify 
by a creative sanctifying act, the soul in the 
very article of death, were, in his opinion, 
" to abridge the ethical sphere and its laws," 
and would imply " a violation of the funda- 
mental law obtaining in the relation between 
divine and human agency." f 

But these considerations, however plausible 
they may appear to some, do not for us suffice 
to set aside the common faith of the Protest- 
ant Churches that, for a regenerated man, to 
die is to be freed from sin. We believe that 



* "System of Christian Doctrine," § 153, iii. 2. 
Mb. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 



45 



" the souls of believers are at their death made 
perfect in holiness. ,, It is true that the decla- 
rations of the New Testament upon this sub- 
ject are not so numerous and dogmatic in 
form as might, perhaps, have been expected. 
And yet we can hardly be wrong in recalling 
here the words in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
where we read of " the general assembly and 
church of the first-born, .... and the spirits 
of just men made perfect. " * For while the 
word rendered " made perfect " might in itself 
conceivably refer only to that legal perfecting 
of which we read elsewhere in this epistle, yet 
we have to read these words in the light of 
their context and of other passages, which, if 
they do not directly affirm, yet give the 
strongest reason for affirming that for those 
who are saved, to depart this life is to be 
made perfect in holiness. The apostle John 
tells us that to see Christ as He is, will have 
the effect of making us like Him.f But we 
are elsewhere told that we shall be with Christ 
immediately after death, and shall, therefore, 
then see Him as He is. Is not the conclusion 
irresistible that then we shall be like Him? 

* Heb. xii. 23. t 1 John iii. 2. 



46 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION'. 

The same may be inferred from the words 
already quoted from the Apocalypse regarding 
the departed dead, — " They shall hunger no 
more, neither thirst any more." * Surely 
these words in their connection can hardly be 
supposed to refer merely to the cessation of 
bodily hunger and thirst. They must needs 
have the spiritual meaning which the whole 
context requires. They send us for the key 
to their meaning to that beatitude pro- 
nounced by our Lord when on the earth, — 
" Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness ; for they shall be filled. "f 

As for the objections urged by Dorner and 
others, we answer, in the first place, that 
although separation of the soul from the body 
brings perfect and immediate separation from 
sin, yet it by no means follows that the seat 
of sin must be the body. For while it is true 
that sin, in many instances, is due to causes 
that lie in our physical nature, and that with 
the absence of this body such incitements and 
occasions of sin will cease, yet these are not 
all the occasions of sin which come to the 

* Rev. vii. 16. t Matt. v. 6. 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 



47 



regenerated man. Many others are found in 
the conditions of this present earthly life. 

The world in which we live, and of which 
w r e form, in the moral sense, a part, is itself, 
through the influences of a society made up 
of unconverted and but imperfectly sanctified 
men, as mighty, perhaps, as the body, to 
seduce the believer into sin. Nor must we 
forget, again, that we are living in a world 
which, for the present age, is characterized by 
the presence and active power of the devil, 
no small part of whose working, as we are 
repeatedly told in the Scriptures, is in order 
to lead the people of God into sin. 

Death is thus not to be conceived of as 
merely a sundering of the relation of soul and 
body. Because it is that, it is much more than 
that. It also removes a Christian from all 
these other provocatives to sin which come 
from outside the body. Not by any means, 
therefore, does the doctrine of perfect sanctifi- 
cation at death imply that sin must be occa- 
sioned in the believer by the body only. 
Rather should we put the matter in this way. 
If a man is truly regenerate, then his will, 
even here, as to its prevailing bent and habit 



48 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

is not for sin, but against it. It is, however, 
a weak will. It is also often misled by imper- 
fect knowledge, so that the man often sins 
without knowing at the time that he is sinning. 
Under these conditions, when tempted by 
bodily infirmity, or the pressure of social in- 
fluence, or more mysteriously by Satan, or 
perchance by all together, it is not strange 
that even though in regeneration the will is 
unalterably set for God, it should often un- 
knowingly, or even knowingly, consent to sin. 

Suppose, however, not only the body, but 
all these external temptations and occasions 
to sin to be removed, as we know that they 
will be removed by death ; then let us remem- 
ber the immense addition to our knowledge 
which the very, fact of death must bring with 
it ; and, above all, the immediate and un- 
broken communion with Christ to which death 
will introduce us : and is it not then easy to 
see how sanctification may be perfected at 
death even by " a truly ethical process " ? 

But, in the last place, if any one feel a diffi- 
culty still remaining, surely we may postulate, 
if anything more be needed, the mighty power 
of Christ as sufficient in any case to give at 



FROM DBA TH TO RESURRECTION* 



49 



once that perfect holiness for which the 
believer longs. Nor would this violate any 
law regulating the relation between divine and 
human action. Dorner's objection to this 
effect proceeds upon the assumption that God 
can not make any course of moral action cer- 
tain in a free agent without destroying thereby 
his freedom. But this assumption is contra- 
dicted both by Scripture and by experience. 
Many acts are certain before they occur, and 
yet are free. It would even make salvation 
impossible as a certain thing ; for what is the 
final salvation but the attainment of an assured 
certainty that the man will sin no more? 
Was it uncertain when God undertook in 
Christ for sinners, whether such a result would 
be attained or no ? 

Moreover the Scriptures always refer the 
regeneration of a sinner, not to his own free act, 
but to the mighty power of God. But if God 
can thus regenerate a man without destroy- 
ing or restricting his free agency, then surely 
faith need have no trouble in believing that 
the same power which regenerated is quite 
able to effect that perfect sanctification at 
death for which we long, and which the Scrip- 
4 



JO FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

tures lead us to expect. Nor need we fear, 
with Dorner, lest thereby the moral quality of 
a holiness thus attained should be destroyed, 
or any law regarding the relation between 
divine and human action should thereby be 
violated. 



D 



A STATE OF PREPARATION. 

UT while we understand the Word of 
God as teaching that "the souls of 
believers are at their death made perfect in 
holiness," we are not, therefore, to understand 
this as implying that there will therefore after 
death be no further room for growth in holi- 
ness. The perfection in holiness which we 
shall then have, will be a perfection in quality \ 
but not in degree. It implies the total absence 
of sin and defilement, while yet it remains 
none the less possible — let us rather say, 
necessary, — that all the elements of a holy 
character shall continue to grow and gather 
strength, not only during the intermediate 
state, but forever and forever. 

And so, from the point of view which we 
have now reached, the intermediate state ap- 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 



51 



pears as a state of special training and disci- 
pline for the high service of that kingdom 
which is to be revealed at the second appear- 
ing of the Lord. Such a conception, indeed, 
seems to follow of necessity from the very 
laws of the soul's being. For it is in the very 
nature of the soul that it must needs grow, 
whether in good or evil. For it to stand still 
in either regard, is impossible. That is true 
even now and here. But after death we shall 
be, according to God's promise, placed under 
conditions more favorable for growth than 
here. Here, so to speak, we are kept, not 
under the immediate instruction of Christ, 
but " under tutors and governors till the time 
appointed of the Father." But then, in a 
sense which is not true now, we shall be 
" with Christ "; we shall be taken out from 
under the " tutors and governors " which train 
us here, and brought under the immediate 
tuition of Him who spake as never man spake ; 
and then and thus we shtJl have entered the 
last and highest class in the school of prepa- 
ration for Christ's kingdom. 

Can any one doubt the result of this? 
Growth in holiness here is measured by the 



J2 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

constancy and intimacy of the soul's com- 
munion with Christ. What, then, will the 
growth be when we shall spend the blessed, 
peaceful, holy years until the resurrection 
day, in fellowship, immediate and unbroken by 
any distraction, with the Lord himself ! Is it 
not clear that we must then think of the 
intermediate state, as, in an eminent degree, 
a state of further training, education, and prog- 
ress toward that exalted spiritual power and 
perfection which we shall need when at last, 
with the return of the Lord to earth, the time 
comes for us to be made rulers over many 
things, according to His promise ? * 

A STATE OF IMPERFECTION. 



ROM all this it follows that the inter- 
mediate state, while a state of freedom 
from sin and pain, and of immediate fellow- 
ship with Christ, is yet a state, in other re- 
spects, of imperfection. This imperfection 
consists, firstly, in this, that it is a life with- 
out the body. So long as this bodiless 



* Matt. xxv. 21, 23. 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 53 

condition lasts, the soul has, so far as we know, 
no organ by which it can communicate with 
the visible and external world. Thus its ac- 
tivities, as we have already seen, are, during 
the intermediate state, restricted. Of this 
proof has been already given, and need not be 
repeated. 

The imperfection of the intermediate state 
appears further from the fact that not at death, 
nor at any time during the continuance of this 
dispensation, is the promised reward given to 
God's people. Thus, we are told regarding 
the saints of the old dispensation, that they 
"all died in faith, not having received the 
promises, .... God having provided some 
better thing for us, that they, without us, 
should not be made perfect."* Herein the 
imperfection, in certain respects, of the de- 
parted saints, is declared in so many words. 
All the saints are to be perfected at the same 
time. 

To the same effect are all the numerous 
representations of the New Testament, where- 
in the second coming of the Lord to earth* 



* Heb. xii. 13, 49. 



54 



FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 



and never the death of the individual believer, 
is set forth as the time for the distribution of 
the rewards for the labors and self denials of 
this life. Thus Paul, writing just before his 
martyrdom, tells us that from henceforth there 
was laid up for him " a crown of righteousness 
which the Lord, the righteous Judge," should 
give him " at that day," and not to him only, 
but "to all them also that love His appear- 
ing."* Not yet, then, has Paul received his 
crown. " That day " has not yet come. For 
the crowning day, Paul, with all the saints in 
Paradise, is waiting still. 

So also our Lord gives us the same teach- 
ing in the parables of the talents and of the 
pounds.f In the latter of these He teaches us 
in so many words, that it was " after a long 
time " that the Lord of those servants came 
and reckoned with them ; and that they re- 
ceived their reward, not one by one, but all 
together when the Lord returned, " having 
received the kingdom." So also, on another 
occasion, He said of those who, when they 



* 2 Tim. iv. 8. 

t Matt. xxv. 14-30. Luke xix. 12-27. 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION'. 55 

made a feast, called thereto the poor and 
needy, that they should be recompensed " at 
the resurrection of the just." * 

To this mode of representation there is ab- 
solutely no exception. In not a solitary case 
does the Scripture connect the bestowal of the 
promised " reward " with the believer's death. 
Whatever he receives of blessing at death in 
addition to what he has now, can only still be 
regarded as an " earnest " of good things to 
come. 

Hence it follows that a very common mode 
of speaking on this subject ought, according 
to the Word, to be rejected. How often are 
we told at funerals and on other occasions, 
even by the authorized expounders of the 
Word of God, that the departed " has now 
received his reward," and so on, whereas this 
mode of speaking is not only without warrant 
in the Scripture, but is directly contrary to its 
plain teachings. It is indeed of kin to that 
modern type of exegesis which makes the 
coming of the Son of Man to this world to 
signify the going of departing souls to Him f 



Luke xiv. 12-14. 



56 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

Surely we shall do wisely to conform our mode 
of speaking on this subject, — one concern- 
ing which we can know nothing at all, except 
what God has told us, — to the teaching of our 
Lord and His apostles. The prevailing mode 
of representation — or rather, misrepresenta- 
tion, — has already done quite enough to turn 
away the mind of the Church from that glori- 
ous appearing of the Lord for resurrection, 
which the New Testament holds before us as 
the one great Hope of the Church, to fix it 
instead on the death of the individual be- 
liever as the ultimatum of Christian hope! 
Let us remember, then, that the intermediate 
state of believers, while, according to the 
Scriptures, " far better " than the present, is 
also, according to the same inspired authority, 
in the respects indicated, a state of imperfec- 
tion. 



A STATE OF FAITH AND HOPE. 

jjF this is so, then it follows, lastly, that 
the disembodied life will, like the pres- 
ent, be a life wherein there will be place for 
faith and hope. It is true that much which 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 57 

we now know only by faith, will then be 
matter of personal experience and immedi- 
ate vision. But still, until it shall please 
the Lord to command the resurrection of the 
body, and therewith to bestow upon all His 
people their destined rewards, there will still 
remain abundant -room for the exercise of 
faith, and hope, and patience. 

This receives a touching illustration from 
the scene in the Apocalypse where the souls 
of the martyrs are heard crying, " How long, 
O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge 
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on 
the earth ?" And to this holy longing after 
the full triumph of the kingdom of God on 
earth, we read that "it was answered that 
they should rest yet for a time, till their fel- 
low servants also, and their brethren, that 
should be killed as they were, should be ful- 
filled"* 

And so it appears, as the result of our in- 
quiry, that the truth of God's holy Word in 
regard to the state of the righteous dead lies at 
an equal remove from two erroneous extremes : 



* Rev. vi. 10, 11. 



58 FROM BE A TH TO RESURRECTION. 

namely, from the Romish doctrine of a purga- 
tory, through which the most even of true 
Christians must pass, that through its cleans- 
ing fires they may be fitted for the heavenly 
life; and, no less, from the popular modern 
Protestant view, which refuses to admit any 
practical distinction as to perfection, enjoy- 
ment, and reward, between the intermediate 
and the resurrection state beyond. 

As for the doctrine of purgatory, it is utter- 
ly without foundation in God's Word ; and 
few doctrines have brought forth worse fruit 
in the practical life of the Church. A mere 
reference to the days of Tetzel, Luther, and 
the great Reformation, not to speak of the 
present, is sufficient to illustrate this. 

As for the other extreme, which makes the 
believer's redemption and reward practically 
complete at death, it is as totally unscriptural 
as the doctrine of purgatory. It has, more- 
over, done very much to divert the mind of 
Christians from that personal return of the 
Lord Jesus, for which He has commanded us 
all to watch and wait. It has thus greatly 
changed the type of Christian thought and 
character from that which Christ has set before 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 



59 



ns as a model in His Word. It has also tended 
to modify doctrinal belief on matters upon 
which the Bible lays much stress. For by thus 
exaggerating the glory and perfection of the 
intermediate state, it has come to pass that, to 
the minds of many, the second advent of our 
Lord and the judgment are made to seem a 
superfluity. No logical place is left for such 
an event in their theology. Hence soon ap- 
pears indifference to the Church's Hope, often 
to be followed, — as, alas, frequent experience 
of late has shown, — by the outright denial of 
this fundamental article of Christian faith. 
Let us therefore beware of this error, and 
hold fast to the Word of God ! 

Blessed indeed are the dead that die in 
the Lord ! — blessed from the instant of death ! 
They do rest from their labors. Tears are 
wiped away from their eyes, and in holy ad- 
oration they serve God day and night in His 
temple. Yet, blessed as they are, they are 
still looking forward — as we also should be — 
to a day which shall be more blessed still ! the 
day of all days, the day of the return of the 
Lord Jesus to the earth* in the glory of His 

* Acts i. ii. 



60 FROM DBA TH TO RESURRECTION'. 

kingdom ; the Hope of the whole undivided 
Church in heaven and on earth, * the day of 
the bridal of the Lamb,f the full triumph of 
the kingdom of God,J and the everlasting re- 
newal of the old, sin-burdened creation. " For 
the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in 
pain together until now, waiting for the adop- 
tion, to wit, the redemption of the body."§ 
"Amen. Even so. Come, Lord Jesus." 
Amen and Amen. 



WHERE ? 



ND so the Church which is with Christ is 
awaiting her return to earth with Him ! 
And where ? How often the question is asked ! 
Yet we can only answer it by saying that 
nothing is clearly revealed. " In Paradise ? " 
Yes ! truly ! But then where is " Paradise " ? 
Who can tell us this ? We know, indeed, 
that the holy dead are "with Christ." But 
who can tell us how much we are to put into 



* i Thess. i. 10 ; i Tim. i. I. t Rev. xix. 7-9. 

\ Rev. xi. 15 ; cf, w. 17, 18 ; xix. 6. 
§ Rom. viii. 23, and context. 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 6 1 

this phrase? Does it give us the right to af- 
firm that the spirits of the just are in that 
particular portion of space which at present 
retains the glorified humanity of our Lord ? 
Perhaps so ; yet we dare not dogmatize here. 
We cannot but remember that we are wholly 
unable to define with precision the relations 
of disembodied spirit to space. Most sug- 
gestive, to our mind, are the following words 
of Martensen : 

" If it be asked where those who are fallen 
nsleep find themselves after death, — nothing 
can be more preposterous than the idea that 
they are separated from us by an outward in- 
finity, that they find themselves in some other 
material world, etc. By such notions we re- 
tain the departed within those limits and con- 
ditions of sense beyond which they certainly 
are. No barrier of sense separates them from 
us, for the sphere in which they find them- 
selves differs in every respect from this ma- 
terial sphere of time and space. As we may 
figuratively say regarding the man who is 
asleep and dreaming, though he is not sepa- 
rated outwardly and locally from the material 



62 FROM DEA TH TO RESURRECTION. 

world around him, yet that he is relatively be- 
yond or above the world, and ' absent ' or 
departed from it, ... . the same may be said 
in an absolute sense of those who have de- 
parted this life Instead of the modern 

notion that the soul wings its way to the stars, 
which is sometimes understood literally, as if 
the soul were borne to another actual world, 
the idea is far more correct that it draws it- 
self back into the innermost and mystical 
chambers of existence which underlie the out- 
ward A realm beneath or under is the 

cosmical description which revelation gives us 

of Hades The realm of the dead, in 

relation to this world of sense, must be called 
the deeper region."* 

But however this may be, as to the place 
or the manner of the life from death till resur- 
rection, we need concern ourselves but little. 
It is written, " Say ye unto the righteous, It 
shall be well with him." Even that were 
enough. And so, with the eye of faith fixed 
on the atoning, reigning, and returning Lord, 



* " Christian Dogmatics," § 276, pp. 459, 460. 



FROM DEATH TO RESURRECTION. 63 

we may well trustfully say with one of the 
sweet singers of the Church : 

" My knowledge of that life is small ; 
The eye of faith is dim ; 
But 'tis enough that Christ knows all, 
And I shall be with Him I " 




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